The bank cashier was counting pads of pound notes when I appearedat his grille the next morning. Hecarefully examined the amount and the signature on the Horizon cheque, all ofit in Connolly’s green ink, then asked, ‘What do you want to do with this?’
‘Cash it,’ Isaid.
‘Have you anaccount at this branch?’
‘I haven’t,no. But Mr Connolly has. He said you’d cash this for me.’
‘Sorry,’ thecashier said. ‘I can’t cash it, you’veno account here,’ and he pushed the cheque back under the grille.
‘Why can’t youcash it?’ I asked. ‘Here’s my name,quite clearly made out.’
‘It’s a crossedcheque,’ he told me. ‘It’s not beenopened. You could put it through yourown bank, would be the best way.’
‘I haven’t abank.’
The cashier wentback to cashing pound notes. Peoplewithout banks did not interest him.
‘What d’you mean,the cheque hasn’t been opened?’ I asked.
He glanced up, surprised to find me stillthere: he thought the matter settled.
‘A crossed chequecan only be paid into a banking account,’ he said patiently. ‘It cannot be cashed unless it’s beencorrectly opened.’
‘Against bankingregulations otherwise,’ said a second, older cashier, who’d come up to listen.
‘And if thischeque were opened, would you cash it then?’
The secondcashier in turn took the cheque and examined every inch of it. ‘But this hasn’t been opened,’ he said atlast.
Cyril Connolly
From: Julian Maclaren-Ross, Memoirs of the Forties. London, Alan Ross, 1965.
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